Automated Messaging Information – Why can’t I hear the announcement?

Our school district uses a telephone broadcast system that enables us to notify households by phone within minutes of an unplanned event that causes early dismissal or cancellation.  Recently we have received feedback that ‘no-one is there when I answer.’  The following information may help to prevent this from happening.

Here’s how detection works:

• The system detects and measures the voice energy when the phone is answered.
• The system measures this energy in combination with the background noise and line impairments.
• If the system determines that it is a “live” answer, it will immediately start playing the message.
• If the system determines that it is a machine, it will wait for three full seconds of silence before playing the message with a maximum wait time of twenty seconds.
• If the system cannot make a determination, it will default to answering machine thus requiring several seconds of silence for the message to play. In this case, you may hear a prompt to “press any key to hear the message immediately.”

Some reasons for false detection:

• Loud background noise; television, radio, general noisy environment.
• A cordless phone that has static or other foreign noise.
• Not saying “hello” or repeatedly saying “hello”.
• Cellular phones which, when called, have the ‘ringback tones’ music option.
• Answering machine/voice mail greetings which are too long or have long pauses in speech.

What can be done to remedy this?

• Do not say “hello” more than once. If the system detected your answer incorrectly, all noise will reset the three-second counter.
• If, after you answer, the message does not immediately play, cover the mouthpiece of the phone to cutout all background noise. The message should begin after three seconds.